November 21, 2024 —After practicing law for more than 40 years, Robert Reed carefully took his time to research and understand all the relevant details needed to make an informed decision on senior living options. His wife, Kathleen Devlin-Reed, agreed, as a former third-grade special needs teacher, prior planning was important. The choice of which senior living community would be their next home became clear to both of them during a visit to Robert’s sister at Collington.
Collington has now become a family affair. Robert and his sister (who has lived there for nine years) even convinced their other brother to move to Collington recently. The three couples spend quality time together and enjoy living within walking distance of each other; it’s a nice full-circle experience.
In addition to the beautiful campus with miles of trails where they now walk their dog every day, Collington is pet-friendly and many residents have animals. Robert and Kathleen were particularly interested in Collington because it was a continuing care community that was complete; it covered all stages of life in the same senior living community. They had not found a comparable place near Boston where they lived prior to moving to Collington.
When asked about his favorite part of living at Collington, Robert cited his four pillars: the people, the staff, the campus and the resident autonomy. They’ve met all kinds of people with tremendous backgrounds who are very interesting and involved, and they really like the friendly staff. The 125-acre campus is spread out and housing choices include apartments, cottages and villas. Robert also loves the wide range of activities, and the freedom residents have to generate ideas and run programs themselves with assistance from Collington.
In fact, when Robert and another resident heard that residents used to race model boats at Collington, they began their search and located six of the model boats in different places on campus. The Resident Association provided some available funds to use while restoring the old radio-controlled boats. “That’s the kind of autonomy and support that you have here, when you have an interest in something you like, you can just do it,” Robert said.